Time-of-use Pricing for Electricity in Ontario

The Province of Ontario plans to implement smart meters for all homes and small businesses in the province by 2010.  The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) began a pilot project, called the Ontario Smart Price Pilot project in 2006 in Ottawa. The OEB pilot project outfitted three separate groups of volunteers with smart meters, with three different time-of-use (TOU) pricing options.

Since then four other TOU pricing pilots have been submitted to the OEB, Newmarket Hydro, Oakville Hydro, Veridian Connections and Hydro One Networks.

In Ontario consumers pay for electricity either using Regulated Price Plan or Time-of-use.  There is an interesting web site that allows Ontario TOU consumers to estimate the cost savings they could gain by shifting their electricity use from on-peak (8.8 cents/kWh), to mid-peak (7.2 cents/kWh) or off-peak (4 cents/kWh).

Comments

[ssurkos]

I do believe that this is a direct hit against working families. When we get up at 530 in the morning to start our day we cannot stay up until 9 pm or later to do our laundry, hence instead of playing outside all day on weekends we are locked up in the house doing laundry. That is the only option left for us unless we want to pay double the cost.
s